Indian American Nikki Haley has said she will consider a vice presidential ticket next year if given a chance but is currently focused on her job as governor of the South Carolina. “If there is a time where a presidential nominee wants to sit down and talk, of course I will sit down and talk. But, you know, I am very aware you have 16 really great candidates, and that means you’re going to have 15 very good potential vice presidential candidates,” Haley, 43, told members of the National Press Club at a luncheon meeting here. Haley said she did not want to waste her time thinking about this now.
“I really don’t think about that. I want to keep my promise to the people of South Carolina, which is to make every day better than the day before it. If a nominee asks me to sit down, of course I’ll talk to them, and then we’ll go from there,” she said. “I’m going to let all of this play out. That’s what I care about. That’s what’s important to me. If there’s a time and place to think about it, we’ll do it then. But I’m not going to waste any energy on that now,” Haley said.
She said the people of the country are extremely frustrated right now with both Republicans and Democrats, because they have gotten so used to shouting and yelling that they have forgotten to listen. “All the people of this country want is action. That’s not too much to ask for. That’s what we were sent to our offices to do,” she said, adding that there is no accountability on any members of Congress or Senate to have to do anything.
“I think, as a public, we have to demand action. We can’t demand yelling. We can’t demand great speeches. We can’t demand quotes in the paper. We have to demand action, and you either deliver or you don’t,” she added. Responding to a question, Haley described Donald Trump – a frontrunner Republican presidential candidate – as a friend and a smart businessman.
“He’s been a supporter of mine, and I consider him a friend… He’s a smart businessman. He’s accomplished a lot during his career. It accomplishes nothing to get mad at anybody that criticizes you. So every time someone criticizes him, he goes and makes a political attack back. That’s not who we are as Republicans. That’s not what we do. That’s not what I want my South Carolinians to do. That’s not what I want us to do going toward,” Haley said.
“What Americans want to hear is policy. They won’t want to hear how someone offended you. They want to know they’re sending someone up to the White House that’s going to be calm and cool-tempered and not get mad at someone just because they criticize them. We would really have a world war if that happened,” she said.
The Post and Courier adds: One member of the media at the Press Club lunch that was high on Haley’s chances was syndicated conservative political columnist George Will. The positives he listed were that Haley isn’t really needed to win the South, since the region will go overwhelmingly Republican in 2016. Instead, he said, “she blunts the war on women” argument that Democrats have been tossing at Republicans. Also, “She’s fluent and articulate,” he said.
Haley broke little new ground in her hour-long appearance where she was introduced as an Indian American, 43 years old and the first minority and female governor in the state.
She told the audience about the state coming together after the Emanuel AME Church mass slaying and how the shooting of black motorist Walter Scott by a white North Charleston policeman didn’t lead to rioting like it did in Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo.
“Today there truly is a New South,” she said in her prepared speech. “It is different in many ways, perhaps most especially in its attitudes toward race. We are still far from perfect. We still have our problems. There’s still a lot more to do. But the New South, in many ways, is a place to look toward, rather than to look away from, when it comes to race relations and racial advancement.”
